A computer system includes a basic input/output system (BIOS) which provides access to low level hardware devices such as keyboards, disk drives, etc. In some systems, an interface, such as the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), provides the operating system with access to the BIOS. An interface file, such as a managed object format (MOF) file, is also provided to provide access by the operating system to the BIOS. A MOF file describes classes and methods that are available to the operating system and any applications running thereon. The WMI interface defines the interface to BIOS, and the MOF file defines the data structures and the methods that are supported by the BIOS.